This sermon was delivered at the Michael Servetus Unitarian Society in Fridley, Minn. on Sunday morning, the 15th of November 2015, as Jamar Clark lay in hospital fighting for his life, shot by Minneapolis police. It was written in the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, France; in Beirut, Lebanon; and Baghdad, Iraq. We share it with you the day after Lena spent most of the night at the camp at the 4th Precinct in Minneapolis dealing with the aftermath of a terrorist attack launched by white supremacists on the people participating in the occupation and calling for justice in the shooting death of Jamar Clark.

Photo: On November 24, 2015, over 2,000 march to reject white supremacist terrorism and reject white supremacist police violence.” by Black Lives Matter Minneapolis #4thPrecinctShutDown #Justice4Jamar

What are we waiting for?

Good morning. Thank you for inviting me here today. It is an honor to be here.

Whether you believe in a God of your choosing or whether you are an atheist or come with some other sense of doing right in the world: the one thing I know is that this morning, whatever your beliefs, if you are a conscious and aware human in the world, it probably feels heavy right now to be a human.

if you are a conscious and aware human in the world, it probably feels heavy right now to be a human.

It feels heavy to me to know of tragedies in Beirut and in Paris, in Syria, in Palestine, in so many places of the world, all the while we too are in the midst of our human lives. Lives where we have moments of joy, celebration, and accomplishment. Lives where we also have people who we love that are sick or dying, where we are worried about paying this bill or that bill or caring for children or loved ones, many of us are struggling in our own ways.

I know, too, that particularly this congregation has known loss very recently. The religious education director of this church Christine was taken from us unexpectedly and long time leader and congregant D’Ann made her transition into the great unknown, peacefully, in the early morning hours of Saturday with loved ones at her side. With sincere and deepest condolences to this congregation and her family I just want to take a moment to lift up Christine.

During these times I ask myself what does it mean to be part of our UU faith community?

And D’Ann was someone I had the honor of knowing and working with on the marriage equality campaign. Many of you may remember that the marriage campaign in Minnesota was about storytelling, and especially for those of us who don’t identify as straight, it was about telling our own story and sharing our own identity around sexual orientation in the world. Both D’Ann and I had reservations about politicizing our identities for differing reasons. In doing the work together, one of the things we bonded over was our desire to do the work but struggling with how they wanted us to do it.

I agreed to come speak here because of D’Ann, because of her heart for justice, because she was unapologetic in her support of me as a queer black woman, not only on those campaigns, but also consistently in her support for the Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and in support of my leadership. She would support us—Black lives Matter Minneapolis—every time we asked for money and she would always send me a note of encouragement and love—even as her messages always had that edge of righteous and mighty anger. So I just want to honor D’Ann and her legacy. I want to lift her up in love, and I want to dedicate this talk to her. I am so thankful she invited me to come here today. May her fierce justice-loving heart rest in peace and continue with us into the fights ahead.

I had planned to open with the quote from Desmond Tutu: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

I had planned to open with the quote from Desmond Tutu: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” But after so much loss in the world and right here in this community, that doesn’t feel like a good place to start. It feels important to hold that quote in our hearts, in the background for now. And start from the heaviness of humanity this morning.

During these times I ask myself what does it mean to be part of our UU faith community? A community that collectively asserts that every human being is important, that every human has inherent worth and dignity, yet we seem unable to bear out that truth in our own congregations, let alone the world. Honestly, I deeply wrestle with the first principle of our faith everyday. I wonder if I affirm this principle in times like these, then must I say that the lives of those killed in Beirut have worth and dignity but so, too, do the lives of the terrorists that killed them?

Must I say that the lives of those killed in Beirut have worth and dignity but so, too, do the lives of the terrorists that killed them?

 It feels unnatural to hold the sentiment together that lives of the terrorists have just as much worth and dignity as the people they murdered. A part of me resists that. In fact, when I think about terrorists like Dylann Roof who gunned down 9 Black people in a Black church in Charleston, my first instinct is not to say his life has worth. If I am honest, my first instinct is to say I want him dead. My first instinct is toward violence and vengeance. My first instincts are in fact incredibly ugly.

These ugly visceral responses happen so quickly and are so compelling. These are also probably the ugliest sentiments of what it means to be human and we all have them in us. They come into our consciousness easily and quickly, and they are powerful. Yet the deeper I move into my faith, the more I realize these are not reactions I want to act on.

In community I am called into a different place: a place that is usually pretty uncomfortable at first.

When I move into my faith, I seek answers that don’t come easily rather that are centered in community and wisdom more reliable than my own. For me, I need to pull myself out of the bigness of emotion, and into the embrace of community, whether that is a semblance of our faith community or my organizing community, I know that alone I am worse off and more parts of me succumb to the ugliness. But in community I am called into a different place: a place that is usually pretty uncomfortable at first.

This place I am pulled into is a place where violence and ugliness are understood but not condoned. This is a place where space is made for the whole spectrum of our human emotions, but where we are still held responsible for the integrity of our actions. Our faith communities are a place where we can have space for the whole spectrum of our emotions, but where we are still held responsible for the integrity of our actions—as well as our inactions. It is a place I hope to pull us into today.

Our faith communities are a place where we can have space for the whole spectrum of our emotions, but where we are still held responsible for the integrity of our actions—as well as our inactions. It is a place I hope to pull us into today.

To be honest, there is part of me that actually really does not like this inherent worth and dignity business, because I want to believe that terrorists like Dylann Roof don’t have worth; it’s easier. If I have to believe that the lives of oppressors are inherently worthy and have dignity then how in the world do I hold them accountable for their actions? Those two things seem to be at such odds with each other. I haven’t yet figured out the answer. I have come to understand that our faith calls us to hold both accountability and compassion—but not necessarily at exactly the same time, or in the same ways—for everyone. And we have to understand that punishment is not justice.

Our faith can call us into more compassion for the oppressed and more accountability for the oppressor. This is the opposite of the way we are taught to think. For me embracing the inherent worth and dignity of each person deeply, means also looking to the second principle of our faith, of justice, equity, and compassion. And in doing so I am called into more compassion for the poor and the marginalized, and I am at the same time called to hold those with the power, the money, and the privilege of whiteness to be more accountable. Accountability doesn’t mean punishment. It doesn’t mean giving into hatred—even though that sometimes happens. It means actually calling on the most privileged to help fix what’s broken.

I have come to understand that our faith calls us to hold both accountability and compassion—but not necessarily at exactly the same time, or in the same ways—for everyone.

This faith journey is both internal—in our own hearts, bodies, and minds—and external, working in the world. We must hold with compassion the defenseless child that resides within each of us, that child that was abused, bullied, neglected, beaten, or otherwise hurt. We must hold them in love, and let our hearts swell with compassion for our own selves without blame, without shame—just sitting in compassion. From there, we can heal a little more each day and see more clearly a new way. Similarly we must call into accountability the adult part of us that can and needs to take better care of our body and health—or whatever area it is for us. I think in our American culture we are unaccustomed to knowing the difference between punishment and accountability. We all know that you cannot truly punish yourself into eating better, exercising more, or being more financially responsible, so it’s curious that we think this works for others. It’s uncomfortable to establish new eating habits, new exercise habits, new ways of saving money and it’s hard work.

So, too, is it on the outside world. It’s hard work to affirm the worth and dignity of all people, of doing justice. It’s uncomfortable. If we are comfortable working for justice, we are doing it wrong, and we are not doing enough. If we aren’t making mistakes and risking making other people angry, we aren’t living into our deepest values as a faith community. If we aren’t willing to risk bold action and real sacrifice then we are not truly committed to our faith.

If we are comfortable working for justice, we are doing it wrong, and we are not doing enough. If we aren’t making mistakes and risking making other people angry, we aren’t living into our deepest values as a faith community.

To bring this into focus, what that actually means in real life is that I am not going to go on twitter and tell the families of the people who were murdered by the terrorists, that hey, my faith tells me that the terrorists who just killed someone you loved, well those terrorists have worth and dignity, too. While you are raging and grieving, I just want you to know that these terrorists that did this to you, that threw your life into chaos and darkness, well their lives have worth and dignity, too. I just want you to know that. That response is worse than asinine, it is the antithesis of compassion in human relations.

In my heart of hearts, while I do believe that the terrorists’ lives have worth and dignity—that is uncomfortable to think about—I also know that now is not the time to assert that belief, even as I claim it is one of my beliefs. No, now is the time for compassion to make room for the pain, to bear witness to the calamity they have caused, to be with the families and communities and countries in their grief and to hold them and surround them in compassion and love, without losing sight of working for justice and equality.

In my heart of hearts, while I do believe that the terrorists’ lives have worth and dignity—that is uncomfortable to think about—I also know that now is not the time to assert that belief, even as I claim it is one of my beliefs.

You may be sitting here thinking, what in the world does all this have to do with Black Lives Matter? Well, stay with me; we’ll get there. I didn’t know about the bombings in Beirut when they happened. I didn’t know when I posted about Paris that, less than 24 hours before, over 40 people had been murdered in a suicide bombing in Lebanon. I didn’t know, because the mass media doesn’t report the deaths of Black and brown bodies like it reports the deaths of white people. Facebook didn’t put up an “Are you safe?” page for the Lebanese people, because they aren’t white enough to care about. Palestinians didn’t have an “Are you safe?” page, because they aren’t white enough.

When white people are victims of terror, it’s because of evil enemies that are out to destroy a perfect way of life. It’s unthinkable. It’s unfathomable. But when it happens in countries with Black and brown people, (according to media) mostly it’s because those countries are inherently plagued by war, because those people are just more violent and don’t know how to “do” this governing thing right. And this is happens even when it’s Black and brown people within our own country. Here we recognize the same mechanisms that allow white society to devalue Black lives are the same mechanisms that allow the mainstream media to publicly mourn and witness white pain and grief, but turn a blind eye to the pain of our Muslim family, or worse, to blame them for circumstances they didn’t actually create.

I am not tweeting about the inherent worth and dignity of the terrorists, because it is not the compassionate thing to do, just as it is not compassionate to say all lives matter in the face of the pain and grief of Black Americans.

Just as in this moment of grief and pain, we ought not tell the Lebanese people or French people that their loved ones’ killers have inherent worth and dignity. Rather, we ought to call up our deepest sense of compassion that our faith calls us to. And so too should it be with Black Lives Matter movement here at home. I am not tweeting about the inherent worth and dignity of the terrorists because it is not the compassionate thing to do, just as it is not compassionate to say all lives matter in the face of the pain and grief of Black Americans.

Black people in this country are fighting for their lives, in ways that most people cannot imagine. We are proclaiming that our lives matter in the face of crushing oppression, when Black people say, our lives matter, when we say Black Lives Matter, the only answer that aligns with our faith truly, is yes, they do. Full stop. Period. And I am drawing these connections, not so we can measure which atrocity is worse or which group has it worse. I am drawing connections in hopes to break your heart open wider to compassion. When we can face the world as it is, we can do something to fix it.

Black people in this country are fighting for their lives, in ways that most people cannot imagine.

But if we don’t listen, if we can’t see and can’t hear what is wrong, we will stay indifferent, unaware. We will stay neutral. And here is where we must bring back the full words of Desmond Tutu to bear in our hearts. To remain neutral in situations of injustice is to choose the side of the oppressor. I want to challenge every single one of you, even as you have the pain of your own lives present, to stop choosing the side of the oppressor, you can start by believing the oppressed.

I want to challenge every single one of you, even as you have the pain of your own lives present, to stop choosing the side of the oppressor, you can start by believing the oppressed.

That means:

When Black people say we are experiencing persecution from the criminal justice system, you believe it.

When Black people say we want the same rights as white people have, we as a faith community say yes, you deserve that. You have inherent worth and dignity, and I will help you fight, because the second principle of our faith is justice, equity and compassion in human relations.

If we cannot do this very basic affirmation in our own hearts and minds, than there is no way we can say with authenticity that all lives matter, or all lives have inherent worth and dignity. If we cannot look into the face of a people crying out in pain and have compassion, we are not being true to our faith.

If we are unwilling to stand on the side of the oppressed, on the side of love, in all of its discomfort then our faith is a hollow and empty one, and our actions lack integrity.

The work is inside and it is outside, we must have compassion for most vulnerable parts of ourselves instead of blaming and shaming them, just as we must have compassion for the most vulnerable and marginalized amongst us without blaming and shaming.

I hope you will join me in the journey for justice: in doing the hard loving work of the world, in discerning more carefully when compassion is called for.

I personally want to know when I meet my death, that I can, knowing I was not neutral in the face of injustice, that I stood on the side of love, even when it was uncomfortable and I was afraid. Nor did I give into the bigness of my emotions and rush to vengeance, but rather, I pushed deeper into my faith, into love, to hold together the bigness of emotion with the integrity of my actions, and in doing so, moved my corner of the world closer to justice. I want to know that, that even when I was afraid, I was fierce about love and fighting together with community and still in ways that fit me. I hope you will join me in the journey for justice: in doing the hard loving work of the world,  in discerning more carefully when compassion is called for.

Writer, activist, and warrior for social justice Adrienne Marie Brown out of Detroit posted her reflections on her blog regarding recent acts of terrorism. Borrowing from her, I will conclude how Brown did, by sharing a poem from her brother, Sam Conway:

May I see clearly
That I am the dead in Paris
And I am also their killers
I am the family of the dead in Beirut
And I am the family of their killers
That I am the child of each refugee
And the mother of every despot
I am each ISIL recruit, each American soldier, every exploded hospital and every roadside bomb

May I see clearly
That I with all the living and the dead
with the Great Earth
Awaken together in this moment

May we see clearly together
That there is a Great Way Through violence and fear
Past bloodshed that brings more bloodshed
A way past hate

And seeing all these things clearly
May we with all beings, Simply do them.

Tags: black lives matter, desmond tutu, first principle, second principle, terrorism, Unitarian Universalism